San Diegans recount harrowing cruise

The passengers pitched in to help others when the Costa Concordia ran aground

Patty Sandoval and Nicholas Taliaferro had never been so happy to end a trip. The two San Diegans got off a direct flight from London Saturday night and thanked God they had survived the most terrifying ordeal of their lives.

The two had been aboard the Costa Concordia cruise ship when it ran aground on rocks off the Italian coast on Jan. 13.

“It was a nightmare. It was supposed to be a relaxing trip and it was a nightmare,” Sandoval said.

On Sunday, Italian authorities said 13 people had been confirmed dead with 20 missing from the ship that had been carrying 4,229 people from 60 countries.

Sandoval and Taliaferro, who said they’ve been dating “a while,” had been in Italy for a week before boarding the Costa Concordia for the most luxurious part of their journey.

Within hours of boarding the Costa Concordia, they discovered they were wrong.

Sandoval was excited to go on her first cruise. She and Taliaferro boarded the ship early to walk around and take in the sights of the 950-foot vessel. She was immediately impressed by their luxurious ocean-facing room, the elegant dining facilities and the view from the two decks above them — where the lifeboats happened to be.

“I made some joke about how we might need them,” Taliaferro said.

At dinner, they sat at a table with a couple from Michigan and another couple from Vancouver.

Taliaferro had just taken his first bite of his mushroom and squid appetizer, when a loud boom shook the room.

As the ship started tilting to its port side, Sandoval and Taliaferro ran for the lifeboats on the deck above them, although no alarms had been sounded.

Once there, Sandoval realized she left her jacket in the dining room and something told her she knew she would need it. A handful of crew members were telling passengers to go back to their rooms or to the ship’s theater as Sandoval ran back to the dining room. She was able to grab her jacket, but had to use the railing to pull herself up the stairs as the ship continued to tilt.

At the lifeboats, Taliaferro began telling people to put on life vests as no crew members seemed to be instructing passengers.

“When you’re in that kind of situation, you become a completely different person,” Sandoval said. “I guess it’s just in our character to always try to think about what could come next.”Taliaferro stood next to a lifeboat and asked a crew member to let them in it. The crew member yelled back and told him not to worry as children around them cried and some adults shook with fear.

“They were hysterical,” Taliaferro said. “What else were they supposed to do?”

It was nearly two hours before emergency sirens started blaring.

Passengers helped passengers put on life vests and figure out how the lifeboats were going to be lowered when the lights on the ship went out.

The only emergency lights were at the front and back ends of the 950-foot vessel.

Standing in the middle of the ship, all Sandoval and Taliaferro could see in the pitch-black hallway were two small lights hundreds of feet away from them on either side, but they could hear their fellow passengers panic.

The lights came back on shortly after and the crew started loading the emergency boats.

Taliaferro yelled to the people around him to let children and women on the boat, while Sandoval guided a young girl on board first. The two of them helped 50 passengers before they boarded the 150-person vessel.

Passengers prayed the “Our Father” in the darkness of the lifeboat as it was slowly lowered toward the black water below them.

Strangers started saying their names into the dark. Sandoval said it was in case the worst happened, they wanted other passengers to be able to tell their loved ones they made it this far.

The metal hook of a crane from the cruise ship swung into their lifeboat as it was being lowered, causing passengers to scream out. Taliaferro recalled crew members kept saying, “No problem, no problem” as the hook repeatedly bumped the side of the boat.

The boat fell from the pulleys more suddenly than anyone expected.

“It was like the Tower of Terror ride at Disneyland,” Taliaferro said.

He hurt his knee on the impact.

The lifeboat painstakingly worked toward shore. As it passed the front end of the sinking ship, Sandoval said she saw people pressed up against the front rails waving their arms and screaming out for help.

“That image,” Sandoval said. “That’s what sticks in my mind.”

The passengers in the lifeboat landed on shore of a nearby island two hours later.

The passengers were thankful to be on land, even as the temperature began quickly dropping in the middle of the night. The survivors found their way to a small church on the island.

People were cold and hungry, so Taliaferro scavenged for emergency blankets and bought chips and candy at a nearby convenience store. Sandoval stayed behind to comfort the 15 other Americans they found on shore.

The passengers of the Costa Concordia had not heard from any Costa Cruises representatives on the island but were being asked to board more boats to travel to the nearby Porto Santo Stefano by government officials.

Passengers eventually were bused two hours away to a Hilton in Rome. It was at the hotel where they saw their first Costa Cruises representative — nearly 12 and a half hours after the ship struck the rock.

Despite the harrowing situation the couple was in, Taliaferro said they are not willing to point fingers at anyone until they know who is truly to blame. “Ultimately, I think there was a lot of miscommunication on every level,” he said.